


At The Core of Being

by CB_Magique



Category: Inside Out (2015), Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Canon - Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Gen, Sora's Mind, contains headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 14:11:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4266231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CB_Magique/pseuds/CB_Magique
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xion wakes up from what she had hoped would be her permanent erasure into a library of Sora's memories. For the time being this place is broken and dilapidated but five odd and emotional beings are working tirelessly to fix it with Naminé's help. They need to find Sora's core memories, which are mysteriously appearing wherever Xion goes and with the discovery of each new one she begins to wonder if she was really okay with giving up existence for Sora's sake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My fanfiction game was strong with this one. I originally intended it to be a one-shot of 3k+ words but it ended up almost three times longer. Therefore, it will have three times as many chapters. There's also a lot of headcanon but that won't be relevant until the final chapter. 
> 
> (It's also on fanfiction.net)

The warmth of Twilight Town's sunset atmosphere and the rough grit of the pavement faded away along with Xion. The light subsided. She closed her eyes and drifted away with it until there was nothing, no feelings or sensations. They had all dissipated into the air with her on their search for Sora's heart. Then out of the nothingness was a cold, smooth floor beneath her. Xion sighed and smiled. This was it.

A spike of panic speared through her chest when after some time she hadn't disappeared. She was still aware of herself. Her eyes flew open and darted to and fro, trying to take in everything quickly but the surroundings were initially blurry and unrecognisable anyway. She pushed herself up to sitting. Her body hadn't gone. It was the same as she remembered it being for most of the time while she was in the world. All around her were tall shelves sitting cracked, broken and empty. Broken pipes pointed to the sky but went to nowhere now. If they had ever gone anywhere Xion couldn't see it anymore; there was only the shelves, the smooth stone floor and a cliff that dropped into a deep, dark pit.

Xion stood up and walked towards the cliff, cautiously looking over the edge. She couldn't see the bottom of it and yet blinking up from within it were thousands of coloured lights like stars. She backed away, a cold shiver running through her body. There was something down there but investigating could prove hazardous unless she could find a safe way down. Preferably a way that would double as an escape. But with the abyss in front of her stretching to either side as far as she could see there was only one way to go. She turned around to face the shelves twisting away into a maze.

Silence closed in tightly as she walked with the only sounds being of her own footsteps crunching shards of glass, stepping on fallen shelves and occasionally knocking a few mysterious coloured orbs. They littered the path here and there. Some were organised onto the shelves that weren't broken but it was still a sparse collection. Her boot nudged one again with a quiet _clink_ and she looked down. It was one of the purple ones and it hadn't rolled far this time. She crouched down to pick it up, curious as to exactly what these things were. As it came closer to her face a moving image within it became clearer. Her eyes widened. Inside the purple orb was a Darkside, massive and looming as a dark hurricane swirled in the background. She leaned closer, eager to see what would happen to it but the movie just looped over and over with that same image of the Heartless.

"What are these?" she asked herself, her voice getting lost in the labyrinth of shelves. She looked around for another one to investigate. Spotting a green one nearby, she picked it up. In it was a green-tinged movie of a group of children sitting around a table in a large room full of other tables and children. The blond boy was drinking out of a cup when all of a sudden everyone at the table laughed and then a stream of chocolate milk shot out of his nose. Most of it landed right back into the cup but he took another gulp from it anyway. Xion grimaced. "Ew."

She stored the two orbs on one of the unbroken shelves. She might as well be helpful while she was around; everything was such a mess. The shelf beneath was crooked so she righted it and then began to pick up more orbs as she walked. Partly she was just curious to see what they contained and the more she saw the more apparent it became that there was a theme to each of the five colours they came in. The purple ones were all terrifying or unsettling and made her uneasy. The green ones were all disgusting or just in the picture of poor taste. The red ones she encountered were all aggressive and often violent. The blue ones were all sad and the yellow ones were cheery and happy.

Every time she found a new one she watched it for as long as she could stand to and then put it on a shelf. She picked up another one – a blue one that featured a dead baby bird being buried – and then shivered as something smooth and round fell down her leg. It hit the floor and bounced, tinkling like glass as it rolled away. She rushed to pick up the brightly glowing yellow orb and gawked at it. She'd dropped it but she hadn't picked it up and it had a much more brilliant lustre than all of the others she'd seen so far. Wondering about this orb that had seemingly come from nowhere she stared into it closely.

In this orb the subject was a portrait being drawn on a cave wall with a chalky rock. The viewer turned to a person sitting beside them, a little red-haired girl in a white sundress. She was working diligently on her own portrait. The viewer turned back to their drawing and Xion could now see the resemblance… kind of. There was no nose, the hair looked like a bird's nest and the facial features were basic and crooked. The viewer pulled back a little bit, finished with their work. They turned to the girl. She sat back on her heels and put her rock down, then looked at the viewer. She smiled and the movie lingered on that moment just a bit longer than it should have before it looped.

Xion put the blue orb on a shelf next to her and tried to store the beautiful golden memory as well but it was a bit too big to fit. She exhaled sharply and stared perplexed at it. All of the other shelves around her were the same as the one in front of her and all of the shelves she had passed before.

"There must be somewhere for you to go," she said to the orb. She tucked it under her arm. "Don't worry, I'll find your place… and hopefully find out where I am while I'm at it."

* * *

She couldn't tell the time here but she must have been travelling for hours and still found no changes in the architecture, nor did she meet anybody. She hadn't found a shelf for the orb she held but she also hadn't encountered another one. Then something hit her in the small of her back and bounced away. She turned around quickly.

"Who did that?" she demanded but there was nothing behind her, not even a shadow or a whisper.

Another large, brightly glowing orb was rolling away from her. It hit a shelf and rolled back, coming to rest in the middle of the aisle. Xion hurried to retrieve it. Unlike the one she held and all of the smaller ones she had tidied up this one wasn't a uniform colour, rather it was in patches of all five colours at once, sometimes moving or changing their size and shape dynamically. She sat cross-legged on the floor and put the golden orb in her lap while she peered into this new one.

When the images appeared they weren't patchy like the orb as a whole but the filter changed as the movie progressed. It began green as the remains of a dying grotesque monster gradually exploded, leaving behind a weakened silver-haired man. Xion gasped. The face of this man looked like Xemnas' but his hair and clothes were unfamiliar. The filter flashed red and green as this man spoke:

_"_ _It is futile. The Keyblade alone cannot seal the door to darkness. Kingdom Hearts! Fill me with the power of darkness…"_

Not-Xemnas turned and reached towards a floating, ghostly island with a massive, ornate door on its furthermost edge. The red filter took over completely until the door began to slowly open and darkness seeped out through the crack. Purple filtered the movie briefly during that moment.

_"_ _Supreme darkness…"_

Red flared again. _"You're wrong. I know now, without a doubt. Kingdom Hearts… is light!"_

The darkness creeping through the door blew away and a bright light filled the orb, brushing away the red with its golden glow. The light engulfed Not-Xemnas and obliterated him, leaving the path clear for the viewer and his two friends to charge at the door standing ajar. Red and yellow battled for dominance over this scene as together the three of them began to push against the heavy doors. However, as they pushed the two companions couldn't help a peek and neither could the viewer. Beyond the door were hordes of Heartless, bulging and ready to swarm. The purple took over and then faded to blue as the viewer almost fell to their knees.

_"_ _I can't…"_

_"_ _Don't give up! Come on, Sora! Together we can do it."_

The face of a silver-haired boy appeared from behind the door and the scene brightened to yellow again. Xion's eyes widened so much it felt like they could have fallen out. It was Riku! A younger version but there was no mistaking that face.

"And 'Sora'…" she whispered. The scene continued with its yellow hue as the viewer pushed the door from outside while Riku pulled it from within. "Don't tell me… this is Sora's memory?"

The door began to close but behind Riku the Darksides were beginning to rise. Yellow tried to remain but purple and blue interrupted its dominance. The Darksides were suddenly vanquished and a mysterious mouse silhouette appeared deep within the door. With him, the golden filter returned.

_"_ _Now, Sora! Let's close this door for good!"_

_"_ _Close it, quick!"_ the duck companion quacked.

 _"_ _But…"_ Sora looked between all of his friends and then straight at Riku. The yellow filter blinked out immediately to be replaced with blue. Everything that happened next was under a veil of blue, even as yellow briefly interrupted when they were finally succeeding to close the door.

_"_ _Take care of her."_

Riku's face looking at him, trying to stay positive despite being on the wrong side of that door made purple and then yellow and then green and then red flash fractionally but the blue drowned them out again as the edge of the door obscured his face. That part happened in slow motion and blurred slightly. Then the door slammed closed and sealed with a final flash of light.

The scene lingered there for a few seconds then reversed back to linger on Riku's disappearing face and replay its tragic ending before it finally conceded to loop. Xion lowered the orb and looked up to the shelves. Were they all Sora's memories? There were so many of them and most were trivial and full of people she didn't know at all. Organisation XIII had made her out of these and yet she'd never been able to recall them; they were so new to her.

New voices echoed along the shelves. Xion gathered up her two orbs and scurried over to a shelf, pressing herself against it and straining her ears to identify where the voices were coming from. They got clearer as they came closer:

"Ugh. Everything's so wrecked."

"Look on the bright side. It's a lot better now than it was before. All of the memory shelves are up—kinda—and they're ready to be sorted. All we have to do is pick up all of these memories and see what we can do to help Naminé recover everything from the Memory Dump that isn't supposed to be there. Then we'll finally be able to rebuild Headquarters and restore the personality islands – oh, it'll be so great!"

Xion bit her lip and looked down in consternation. Naminé was here? Or at the very least she was involved here. After all that had happened Xion still held a deep resentment. She understood it was necessary but she still resented that it had to come at her expense.

"Naminé is the reason we're in this state in the first place," the first voice grumbled.

"I know, I know but she's also the only one who can help us fix this mess. You could say that she's reformed now. She's doing good and it's helping us. We can be grateful for that, right?"

"I guess… but restoring the personality islands will require the core memories and we're running out of time to find those. We don't even know if some of them are here. Naminé said they got lost _outside_."

"But she also said she'd find them and we should just focus on getting everything ready so that Sora can wake up. Please, Disgust, I know it's hard for you but can you just believe in her? She's doing her best and so should we."

"Ugh! Fine!"

Two women rounded a shelf, also picking up orbs as they went and putting them on shelves but they had a rhyme and reason to what they were doing. They scrutinised memories and shelves to put particular orbs in particular places, discussing their work quietly as they did. They were both smaller than Xion but her work in the Organisation had taught her (somewhat mistrustfully) to be wary of locals. They were walking in the opposite direction and hadn't turned to face her even once. Xion crept backwards, keeping her eye on them but as she was leaving her boot stepped in a pile of shattered glass. The _crunch_ was small enough to have been made by a mouse but it screamed in Xion's ears like the loudest crash.

The women started and turned around, one of them dropping the orb she was holding in the process but it did not smash. They gawped at her and Xion stared back for a long while.

"Oh… my gosh," the green woman with eyelashes longer than her fingers exclaimed. "Who are you and what are you doing?"

"Disgust, I'm sure there's a good explanation for this," the blue-haired yellow woman said. She turned to Xion and walked towards her. "Hi there! No need for alarm, it's all good. Are you a new emotion? I'm Joy and this is Disgust. Who are you?"

Xion didn't reply. Joy turned to Disgust. "Hey, what emotion is black? Or do you think she's from Imagination Land?"

"Joy, are you blind!?" Disgust shouted, running up and shaking her by the arm. She pointed at Xion. "Look what she's got!"

Joy did look. She gasped. "Core memories! We're looking everywhere for those! How did you find them? Do you know where we can find the rest? I mean, those _do_ belong to Sora, right?"

Xion clutched the orbs tighter, turned and ran.

"Is she running off? I can't believe this!"

"Wait!"

Disgust and Joy took off after her. The rows of shelved orbs reminded Xion of her path and she followed it blindly at first but that path only led one way: back to the cliff. She still wasn't eager to find out what was at the bottom of that just yet so she took a random corner. Behind her Joy and Disgust yelled at the top of their lungs. Xion drowned out the words with her own breathing and footfalls but she was beginning to hear different voices joining the calling up ahead of her. She slammed into someone who'd just come around a shelf. They were so much shorter than her that she tumbled over them and dropped the orbs in the process.

"WHAT IS THE BIG IDEA?!" the short person screamed. Xion lifted herself on her hands and looked towards the new voices. A short, blocky man with a flaming head scowled at her from where he was getting up from the floor. Meanwhile a skinny, purple man had jumped into the arms of a plump, blue woman with large glasses.

"What is that?" the purple man squeaked. "Is that an emotion? How'd they get here? Are they from _outside_?"

"Doesn't matter!" the red man boomed, advancing towards Xion menacingly. "They smashed me so I'm gunna smash them!"

The blue woman gasped and dropped the purple man. She waddled past Xion and the red man as fast as her short legs would go. "Look! Those are core memories."

That distracted the red man enough to look away from Xion and the fire on his head subsided. The purple man sucked in a deep, exaggerated breath and jumped to his feet, following the blue woman to go and catch the orbs before they got too far away. In the meantime, Joy and Disgust caught up. Both of them stumbled onto the scene and stopped to catch their breaths.

"Oh boy…" Joy wheezed. "You're… such a fast… runner. How do you run so fast?"

Disgust straightened up and fixed her hair and clothes as she stomped over to Xion and lifted her up by her coat collar. "What's the big idea, huh?"

Xion just fixed her with a dumbfounded expression. She exchanged confused and frightened looks with all of the strange people around her, including the two who were just returning with the retrieved orbs.

"Yeah," the red man chimed in. "I'd also like to know what the big idea is. And I asked first."

"Can't talk, hm?" Disgust said, leaning closer.

"Easy, guys," Joy interrupted, getting between Xion and Disgust to separate them. "I'm sure that if we give her a little space to calm down we'll get the full story. Won't we?"

She turned to Xion with such a sunny and reassuring expression that all of the tension in Xion began to unravel. Disgust just made another disgruntled noise and flicked her bangs.

"Yeah, tell us the full story of why you were trying to steal two of Sora's core memories."

"STEALING CORE MEMORIES?!" the red man exploded. Literally. Fire burst out of his head in a big blast.

"Stealing?!" the purple man gasped. "I-is that even p-possible? This isn't how it happened before."

"Why would you want to steal core memories?" the blue woman asked, giving Xion a sympathetic yet despondent look.

"I… I don't know what you're talking about," Xion finally answered.

"Oh-ho! She speaks!" the red man said. "So speak up! What were you doing with the core memories?"

"They…" Xion began but then she paused. What _was_ she doing with the orbs? "They just seemed really important, precious even. I wanted to protect them."

"They are precious," Joy told her with a calm smile, "and they should definitely be protected. That's why you should have given them to us; it's our duty to look after core memories."

"Core memories? What are core memories? What is this place? Who are you?" Xion asked.

"Core memories are the most important memories a person can have," Joy explained. "They make them who they are by generating the energy required to run the personality islands. The creation of memories – including the core memories – is overseen by us: the emotions. You've already met me and Disgust but you also need to know Anger, Fear, and, of course, Sadness."

Each of the emotions grumbled, shifted or murmured as they were introduced.

"And this place…" Joy said as she gestured grandly to the space around them with both arms, "is Sora's mind."

"Sora's… mind?" Xion echoed, looking around as if she was seeing it for the first time. Not his heart, his mind. If this was his heart she probably would have understood. She had been made of his memories and she needed to return them to fix his heart. She assumed and had been led to believe that that meant returning to his heart. Had she ended up in the wrong place somehow? "But… aren't memories from the heart?"

"That's probably where they're manufactured, yes," Joy replied. "I think that's where we came from too." She gestured generally to all of the emotions. "I can't think of any other place we could have come from. But memories have to be stored somewhere in order for them to be recalled and that somewhere is here in the mind. And the core memories, oh, they are _so_ important. They are the deepest reflections of the state of the heart and they can never be forgotten. We have to take especially good care of them."

Joy bent down to pick up a yellow orb, gazing into it fondly. "If all of these little ones disappeared that would be regrettable but Sora would be okay. That shouldn't be a _huge_ problem thanks to Naminé. You know, she's been working around the clock trying to restore all of these little orbs and she's doing such a great job. At this rate everything will be back to normal before we know it. But the point is: they're not a big deal. However, if he loses core memories, he'll lose the really important parts of himself. That's why we need to find all of the lost core memories and be ready to reinstate them in the central hub when Headquarters is back up and running."

"But some of the core memories are lost," Sadness piped up. "They're really, really lost. They were taken from Sora's mind…"

"They ended up _outside_ his body!" Disgust jumped in. "Can you imagine that? How do these _outside_ things keep getting in?"

"I don't know but once this is all fixed I propose we put the mind in full lockdown and never go out again," Fear suggested, clutching the yellow orb to his chest tightly.

"I don't think we can do that," Joy said. "As in, I don't think that's a power we actually have."

"Why not?!"

The other emotions began to banter but Sadness kept ambling on in her morose drone. Xion stepped away from the main group and sat beside her, listening. "Once they were _outside_ we had no way of getting them back. Normally I'm the only one who's sad all the time around here but everyone was sad. Managing his emotions also means managing his relationships and his personality and… and we lost all of it. The personality islands crashed into the Memory Dump and Headquarters fell apart. We only saved ourselves by jumping into a recall chute and sending ourselves to Long-term Memory—that's this library." She indicated the shelves around them with her eyes. "But once we got here most things were already in ruins and a lot of the mind workers had gone, we don't know where. We couldn't find _any_ of the core memories. The first ones we found were all cracked from Naminé altering them but she changed her mind since then. She fixed them and she's helping us fix the rest of Sora's mind… but while we were working, some of the core memories got sucked out. Naminé was the only one with a link to the _outside_ so we had to trust her to find them for us."

Sadness hugged the multi-coloured orb, pressing her cheek against it. "This one is especially important; it has a lot of things going on. It was one of the core memories we lost so if it's back then maybe that means that all of the other lost memories are back too. Naminé succeeded. Since you brought them here, does that mean you're a friend of Naminé's?"

"Er… sorry, no," Xion said, opting for honesty. "I know her but I wouldn't call us friends."

"Aw…"

"Friend of Naminé's?" Joy cut in, appearing from behind Xion's shoulder. "I heard 'friend'. We can be friends. We're still missing some of the core memories but since you seem to have a knack for finding them, do you want to help us look? I'll even show you our temporary HQ and a place to put these core memories and others once we find more. They don't fit on the shelves."

Joy lifted Xion off the floor and dragged her along, ignoring protests from Anger and Disgust. They navigated their way expertly through the library of Long-term Memory. All the while Xion puzzled over the concept of being in Sora's mind as well as the mystery of how she had come to find the core memories in the first place.


	2. Chapter 2

They exchanged titbits of information as they travelled. Xion eventually divulged her name and Joy happily nattered about the strange situation the emotions found themselves in and how they normally wouldn't have known much about how to navigate the mind outside Headquarters but had committed the maze to memory out of necessity. They eventually came to a large, steel grey, industrial building that was in a rather poor state but construction equipment and jellybean-like workers were moving around, piecing it back in order. The emotions waltzed through, sometimes casually greeting the workers (especially Joy). They entered a dark, spacious warehouse room with two entrances on either side. Xion apprehensively resisted on account of the wonky sign hanging above the door that said 'DANGER' but the emotions insisted that it was a good short cut.

"Don't worry! Abstract Thought can only be fired up while Sora's awake and also mentally functional," Joy had told her. "So this route is safe."

"For now," Fear added anxiously, not trusting the large, dark tunnel until they were all safely on the other side.

The exit of Abstract Thought led straight to a train station with a freight station along most of its length and a traditional passenger platform to one side. A train was parked at the station but it would be destined to remain for a while longer. Despite being complete and well-maintained compared to everything else so far the station was inactive. The cranes and forklifts were still and the train yard and platform were empty.

Across the tracks lay their destination. A grand gate that had been restored to its former glory proudly welcomed visitors to 'Imagination Land'. Beyond it the park wasn't as grand as the entrance made it out to be.

"This is Imagination Land, one of the greatest places in all the mind ever!" Joy gushed. "Sorry about the mess. We've been trying to clean up but it's a little difficult to get this place back up to scratch without Sora being awake to provide active imagination. In the meantime, we've got Temporary Headquarters in here since it's a good place to rebuild from. Here and Dream Production are the only places in the mind that already have all of the construction equipment and tools to fix and build stuff. If you look to your left you can see the new recall plumbing ready to be installed and coming up on the right are some of the components to rebuild Headquarters…"

Joy chattered on and on like a tour guide through this dilapidated land of broken bits. Xion looked around, only sometimes following her instructions on where to look. Her eyes passed over the piles of new glass pipes that were reminiscent of the broken ones all throughout Long-term Memory. Completed pieces of machines or buildings were also arranged along the road for easy access when it was time to cart them away but what drew Xion's eye the most was the collapsed buildings and broken-down conveyors that stood forgotten and half buried in broken, fanciful things piled up like junk.

"I can't wait to restore Headquarters so that this place can get cleaned up even a little," Disgust muttered, grimacing at what appeared to be the tail of a dead magical creature poking out from under a pile of imagination trash on the side of the path.

"This place used to be so bright and wonderful," Sadness moaned, "but now everything's broken. It's so sad."

"Yeah…" Xion replied in a low voice, swallowing thickly. It wasn't her fault, she hadn't asked to be made but being made was part of the reason why this had happened and the guilt strangled her. _"Sora can't be Sora because of me. When I exist everything of Sora's is ruined. That's why I need to disappear…"_

It was the truth, she told herself. There was no need to get upset over the truth but the aching only bloomed wider, engulfing her from her belly outwards. A small hand touched hers and she flinched.

"I'm sorry," Sadness said. "But you looked really sad."

Xion laughed sardonically. "That's not possible…"

Before Sadness could ask her to elaborate, Joy announced with a great flourish: "And here it is! Temporary Headquarters! It's nothing much to look at right now, just bits and pieces that don't even work but once they're installed in real Headquarters it will be amazing."

Temporary Headquarters was nothing more than a cleared out space on the ground with a disconnected control board behind a round apparatus with slots for memory orbs. Some of them were already filled with core memories. Fear and Sadness went straight up to it to slot in the memories they held. Joy cheered.

"Alright! Two more! That means we only need one, two… four! There's only four left to find. Alright, group huddle. Now that Xion's in the mix, we need a new game plan to find the rest."

The emotions all gathered around and started to scheme, a conversation that was overwhelmingly dominated by Joy. Despite mentioning her they had already disregarded Xion's involvement. That didn't really surprise her, not after everything she had been told throughout her short life. Looking for something to do, she wandered over to the hub holding the core memories. There were four brightly shining orbs – the two they'd just brought and two other bright, golden memories. Xion peered into each of them. One of them was a memory of Sora and Riku as children, sitting on a beach and watching a shooting star sail by. It surprised her by suddenly fading into a new location—that mysterious stained glass platform—and another heart descended into Sora's hands. The next one didn't feature anything or anyone that Xion recognised but she could guess (from what she knew intellectually) that those people must have been Sora's family and the room must have been in Sora's home.

She reached out to touch this unfamiliar memory but when she got a look at her hand her eyes widened in horror. The yellow light was faintly shining _through_ her gloved hand. She looked down, patting herself over and flapping her coat. It wasn't noticeable without the backlight and she could still feel herself as solid, completely physically present. Was she fading away or had she been a ghost here all along?

She cried out in pain when something struck her funny bone. She cradled her elbow as she turned to the brightly shining memory orb that fell to the floor. It was another yellow one with a joyful scene of Sora, Riku, Kairi and three unfamiliar children running around in a goofy game that seemed to involve evading the various adults laughing with them but she could only look at it for a second before Joy called out:

"Xion? Are you okay?"

Xion looked over her shoulder. The emotions were coming towards her like a wall, all concerned for her.

"We heard you yell," Fear said, wincing so much that his head was almost between his shoulders. "Is there something wrong?"

"Just great," Anger growled. "We've already got all this on our plate and now there's something else?"

"Oh, n-n-no," Xion stammered, picking up the new memory orb. She paid close attention to her hands this time, dismayed that the light was shining through stronger.

"Are you sure?" Sadness asked, tugging on her coat. "You look a little… translucent."

"Are you disappearing?" Disgust said.

"I hope not," Xion replied, trying to mirror Joy's optimistic face. "But I found another core memory."

She held it out to show them. Joy's eyes lit up and her smile broadened. "You found that one! This is great! I love that one!"

Joy snatched it from Xion's hands, gazing into it excitedly and paying no mind to anything else, not even the suspicious looks the other emotions were now levelling at Xion. "This is the core memory that powers Goofball Island. Sora gets _so much_ mileage out of this one," she continued, giggling as she slotted it into place with the others. "Thanks, Xion. You have no idea how important that one is."

"They're all important," Disgust pointed out, rolling her eyes at Joy.

"What I want to know is how we never found that one when it was so close by," Anger said, turning to Xion. The top of his head started to glow like embers. "It seems to me that these core memories just spontaneously appear wherever you show up. Just what are you playing at?"

"Nothing!" Xion insisted, casting nervous glances at all of them.

"Yeah, guys," Joy cut in, coming over to stand between Xion and the emotions. "Everyone just chill out. So we must have overlooked that one, probably because it was so close that we didn't think to look very hard but once again Xion has helped us retrieve a core memory and now we're only three memories away from being able to restore Sora's personality and return power to the mind. Everything's all good and Xion's been-"

Xion interrupted her with an _oof_ and almost doubled over like she'd just been smacked in the gut. Another bright memory dropped onto the floor between them, this one coloured in swirls of yellow and purple. Everyone stared at it in surprise. Then Fear, Anger and Disgust glowered at Xion. Sadness looked up at her, her mouth stretched into a lugubrious frown. Xion frantically swapped gazes with all of the emotions and then turned to Joy for defence but Joy was staring at the core memory on the floor in disbelief. She crouched down to pick it up.

"This memory…" she whispered as if telling it a sombre secret. Inside the orb two boys – Sora and Riku again – faced an ominous sound coming from a cave hidden behind some vines beside the waterfall on the small play island. With Riku by his side, Sora finally approached the cave and let the other boy take the lead to enter. There was no monster inside like they thought there would be but there was the disquieting sight of a mysterious door. "It's responsible for powering Curiosity Island but… how did it come out of you like that?"

She looked at Xion imploringly as all of her optimistic explanations came up inadequate.

"I bet it's because she's hiding them!" Anger shouted, pointing the accusing finger at Xion. "She's been hiding them inside her all this time! That's why she's always able to 'find' them. I think this is what Naminé meant about bringing the memories back from _outside_. She brought you right to us."

"You're fading…" Sadness said. Xion looked down. The piece of her coat that Sadness was holding was now more transparent, enough so that Xion could see the fingers holding it from underneath. "Maybe that's why you were brought here. You're made of Sora's memories so we have to deconstruct you to return them to the central hub."

Xion's breathing quickened and her body ran cold. It was the truth. She was supposed to accept it, had no choice but to accept it, she thought she had already accepted it back when she'd said goodbye to Roxas. Yet with the second wind she'd received in Sora's mind she'd lost her resolve.

"You've got more of his core memories, don't you?" Anger demanded. "Hand 'em over!"

"… No…" she said, forcing it out past her constricted throat.

"I knew it! Memory thief!" Disgust shouted.

"No! I… I want to exist!" she screamed, turning around and tearing her coat out of Sadness' hands, bowling the short woman over as she ran.

"GET HER!" Anger bellowed.

"Wait! Let's just talk this out!" Joy pleaded.

"The memories are more important," Disgust said.

With tears blurring her vision, Xion ran blindly through Imagination Land and all of its ruined artefacts and trash piles. Sometimes she stumbled over ruins or tripped over the mind workers trying to tidy everything up or construct new buildings and machines. She hadn't paid any mind to where she was travelling but it wasn't the path they'd come down. As long as it led away from the emotions and their central hub she would be fine. All she had to do was get back into Long-term and get lost in the maze, possibly forever.

While she was contemplating whether she could live with that, the edge of the cliff came into view and she skidded to a halt. One side was a towering pile of trash and on the other side was a walled-off construction site. She turned around. The emotions were right behind her, fire burning from Anger's head as he charged ahead. Xion took several frightened steps back. She halted and looked over her shoulder at the abyss only a couple of feet away.

"Catch her before she jumps!" Anger ordered.

"Not the Memory Dump!" Fear shrieked, speeding up and catching up to Anger in the vanguard. "If she falls into the Memory Dump it's over! She'll disappear forever!"

"Guys, let's not be a lynch mob about this!" Joy called to the front, trailing the party with Sadness. "Let's go talk it over at Temporary Headquarters. I'm sure we can make some compromises."

Nowhere to go. Xion's eyes darted about for any options available to her and then panned up the trash pile. It was steep on this side and only loosely sorted but surely she should be able to climb it. A loud _clang_ above her and someone yelling "Look out!" interrupted her mid-step. She only caught a split-second glimpse of the bearing beam swinging before it collided with her. It knocked her off her feet and over the edge of the cliff, sending her freefalling into the Memory Dump.


	3. Chapter 3

Xion crashed onto a pile of memory orbs and slid down the slope to the base, almost getting buried in orbs in the process. The fall didn't hurt, which may have been attributed to being in an ethereal place… or to being in an ethereal form. She looked down at herself. Even in the darkness she was visibly transparent now. She flopped onto her back miserably.

The cliffs around the Memory Dump were too high and smooth to scale on her own. The light only reached the top and down in the pit there was nothing but dull memory orbs. Some of them were dulled to the point of having lost their colour. They occasionally disintegrated into smoke and ash but others were fine and bright, the only problem being that they didn't glow.

She picked up one that was right beside her and looked into it. It still worked without its glow. It was a purple one that started out just looking over the sea to the horizon, and then as Sora leaned back the face of a redheaded girl loomed over him, startling him. Xion touched the orb with her other hand. It paused right there. Moving her finger from right to left took the movie forwards or backwards. Xion lingered on the face of the girl. She couldn't change the perspective by turning the orb around but she could recognise her face when she saw it—Kairi's face. She dropped that one carelessly and picked up another. It was a yellow memory of Sora and Kairi sitting together on a pier and watching the sunset together.

_"_ _Sora, don't ever change."_

Xion let it roll out of her hands. Such a happy memory for Sora but she couldn't bear to watch it anymore. Kairi settled it for her; Xion wasn't a person. Everything she was and everything anybody saw her as was borrowed from somewhere else. Even her face didn't belong to her.

A pair of shining white eyes opened above the pit. Xion jumped, disturbing the orbs around her and sliding even further down the pile. The irises of those giant eyes swirled with rivers of neon light as if there was another dimension behind them. Sometimes those rivers swirled around each other, creating a portal that dropped a sparkling white creature into the pit. Hundreds of them fell from the eyes and spread about the pit. One of them landed close enough for her to get a good look as it stood up. It was vaguely human-shaped and wobbled haphazardly like a living scribble yet it moved with purpose as it picked up a memory orb and examined it. Xion's mouth went dry with fear. That intelligence and that form coupled with its apparent lack of emotion indicated that that was a Nobody. They were all Nobodies, fanning out and picking through the memory orbs in the Memory Dump.

She watched the Nobody closest to her but it ignored her completely in favour of scrutinising the memory orb. It polished the bright red orb until it shone again then stretched its own head out to use as a slingshot, sending the memory orb high into the air. It soared so far that Xion lost sight of it in the sky. It would end up littering the floor within the Long-term memory until the emotions or the mind workers went to pick it up. In fact, that was what all of the Nobodies were doing, all of them intensely focused on polishing memory orbs and returning them to Long-term while the neon white eyes watched them from above.

The Nobody picked up another orb, this one slightly bigger than the others. It titled its head from side to side in puzzlement. This orb was already shining and very brightly at that. Xion finally found her will to move and stumbled over the loose and uneven orbs.

"That's a core memory!" she snapped, snatching it away from the Nobody. "I need that. I need that to exist."

She gazed into the orb, tears gathering on her eyelashes again. Other nearby Nobodies began to gravitate towards her, attracted by the light. It must have fallen out of her when she fell but even though she was more see-through for it she wasn't any less solid. No matter how she tried she couldn't reabsorb it into her body. This one was swirling with green and red but with little patches of yellow trying to peek through. In it was Kairi's face again, this time with a worried expression.

_"_ _Are you sure you want to go over there? It seems like he's still mad."_

The blond boy from the chocolate milk episode was there too, arms tightly folded and a dark glare on his face as he shook his head. There was dried blood on his upper lip and a bruise on his forehead. His hair and clothes were a mess and beside him another boy and girl stood edgily. Every now and then the group would turn to look down a bridge leading to an island with a crooked tree, where Riku sat on his lonesome.

 _"_ _He's not worth it,"_ the blond said.

Sora put a hand on the blond's shoulder. There was a bruise on his wrist and a fresh scab on the side of his arm. _"He's totally worth it. I'm sorry you got involved on my account but I'll make this right."_

Sora turned and walked down the bridge, ignoring the spiteful comment from the blond: _"You've got better friends, Sora. Don't waste your life…"_

At the end of the bridge he turned to the tree. Riku sat on the trunk. He was in a roughed-up state too and staring sourly at the horizon. Despite the hostile vibe, Sora approached him.

_"_ _Riku… I'm sorry. I didn't really mean for this to happen."_

_"_ _But you did mean it. You were willing to fight over it,"_ Riku retorted.

There was a pause as Sora's gaze shifted to the ground for a moment and then he looked up. _"Okay. So maybe I don't agree but… I don't hate you. And I don't want you to hate me."_

 _"_ _Then come with us!"_ Riku pleaded, sliding off the trunk and walking up to Sora with his arms open. The next words looked like they physically hurt for him to say. _"I… I… I don't want to hate you either. I don't hate you. You have no idea how much I don't hate you. That's why it's so important to me."_

_"_ _But the Islands… Riku, this is our home. And you made Tidus mad too; he's our friend. Is that what you're going to do? Cut ties with everyone until this isn't your home anymore?"_

_"_ _That's not…! We can totally come back. Nothing ever changes here, the Islands won't go. But I can't go without you, Sora."_

Sora closed in before Riku could retaliate and hugged him. Riku returned the embrace and then the movie ended, taking it back to Kairi's worried face. Xion wiped tears from each of her eyes. Sora's precious memories: without them he would no longer be but with them Xion would cease to be. Neither could live while the other did. What a mess.

One of the scribbles tried to tug the orb out of her hand. "No," she said, pulling back harder. "It's mine now. Just let me exist."

The scribble didn't listen and simply tried to take it again, this time assisted by a second one. Xion was able to pull it from their weak grasps easily but every time she resisted more of them tried to assist. When it got too crowded for them to lend more helping hands, one of them grabbed her by the waist and tried to lift her. She shrieked, demanding that they stop. They crowded around her, grabbing and tugging until they'd lifted her off her feet.

"What are you doing to me? Let me go!"

Three unoccupied scribbles teamed up to make a huge slingshot. They dumped Xion into its cradle, pulled it taught and then fired her up the cliff. She screamed. The Memory Dump drifted away from her until it was once again nothing but an abyss. She arced through the air, coming over a small downtown precinct of ruined buildings. All the while the white eyes watched her fly. Then they closed and disappeared.

She landed on a broken boulevard so hard that she bounced a couple of times. She groaned and dragged herself up but nothing hurt. Her body was so transparent now she was nothing but a ghost. She hugged Sora's memory close. It may have been the only thing keeping her here.

Since she had become more transparent she must have dropped another memory orb. If memory served her, that was the last one. She looked around for it. In the shadows of the looming abandoned buildings its bright glow led her straight to it, wedged in a gutter. This one came in swirls of blue and yellow and once again featured the girl who gave Xion her face. Xion gazed into it sadly.

_"_ _Kairi!"_

She looked up. _"Sora."_

There was a great _crash_ and the ground tore open between them – white sand separating from yellow. Sora looked back up to her face. _"Kairi, remember what you said before? I'm always with you too. I'll come back to you. I promise!"_

The crack widened gradually, both of them stuck on opposite sides but they held on tightly.

 _"_ _I know you will!"_ she called out to him.

The chasm widened and they slipped through each other's fingers. The memory orb showed her drifting further and further away, way out of reach even though Sora kept stretching his arm towards her as if he might. It looped over and over again, that short memory.

"Look, there she is!"

Xion turned at the sound of Joy's voice. The bright emotion ran towards her with a smile on her face but she wasn't tailed by the entire entourage. Only Sadness dawdled behind her. Xion stood up as Joy reached her.

"I'm so glad! I guess you got out of the Memory Dump by yourself," she panted, leaning on her knees. "We were coming to get you – me and Sadness, that is. The others thought we were being all crazy and that there was no way we'd be able to save you and the rest of the core memories but it looks like we didn't have to anyway, so all's well that ends well!"

"How were you planning to find me?" Xion asked. "I fell into the Memory Dump. The cliffs are so tall you wouldn't be able to climb back up."

"Well, Sadness and I were pretty sure that we might be able to get down there via the subconscious. It would definitely be dangerous and there was definitely a chance that Sadness and I would be lost forever in there and there was a huge possibility that we would be wrong and there was no way down but it was worth a try." Joy leaned closer to whisper behind her hand: "Sadness didn't do much for most of Sora's life so she read the manuals a lot and she thought it was worth a shot and that was good enough for me."

She shrugged just as Sadness caught up and spotted the two core memories in Xion's hands. "You're okay… and more memories popped out of you."

"Yes! They did!" Joy said grabbing the tri-coloured one out of Xion's hands. Xion held the other one tighter. "These will be the last two! Aw, I remember this and how even though all of the bad I got to have a _little_ influence and turn everything around and then it was all good." She pressed a finger against one of the yellow patches. "We'll install this one back in the central hub and then Compassion Island here we come!"

Xion didn't pay much mind to Joy's ramblings, looking around at the city-like surroundings. "Is this Sora's subconscious?"

"No, this is just Dream Productions," Sadness answered. "This is where mind workers work with the other mind workers from Imagination Land and Long-term Memory to make dreams for Sora while he's asleep. The subconscious is nearby. Sometimes things escape and enter Sora's dreams uninvited."

"But most of the time it's locked up nice and safe," Joy added. "To be honest, we're not entirely sure if the subconscious is still active now."

"It should be if Sora's still alive," Sadness said.

"But we no longer have to find out," Joy said with ecstatic relief. She turned on her heel and began to walk back the way they came. "Alrighty! Back to Temporary Headquarters!"

"I don't want to go back there," Xion protested, taking a step back. "The others will destroy me. I know it's your job to do this or something but… these memories are the only thing keeping me existing."

"But you've dropped them all and you're still here," Joy pointed out. "Barely. Maybe your situation is just a little complicated? Maybe there's more to you existing than just having someone else's memories. Let's talk about this back at Temporary Headquarters, I am so psyched to put this back in the central hub." She ran ahead, leaving Sadness and Xion to dawdle behind.

* * *

The journey between Dream Productions and Imagination Land was short but Xion's mind had been whirling the entire time. Nothing coherent came to mind and even if it did it would fray into a mess of tangled thought fragments before it became useful. She no longer had any memories inside her but perhaps keeping a hold on the last memory she had was the only thing keeping her here. Sadness' sorrowful mutterings were no help.

At Temporary Headquarters, Joy slotted the tri-coloured memory into the central hub. She sighed dreamily as she walked alongside them, making tinkling sounds by running her fingers over them. Xion also stepped up to them, peering into the yellow memory of Sora and Kairi drawing each other. Beside it was the multi-coloured memory of losing Riku after defeating Not-Xemnas.

"How do you know what colours to give them?" Xion wondered aloud. "And how do you know which ones to make core memories and which ones are just normal?"

"It depends on who influences them," Joy replied. "I've been the one responsible for most of Sora's memories when he was a kid. See? I did this one." She pointed at the memory in front of Xion. "That one powers Friendship Island. I also influenced all of these other great happy memories like this one that powers Family Island and of course the one that powers Goofball Island. That one is my personal fave." She rubbed the memory fondly.

"What about the multi-coloured ones?"

"They're a team effort." Joy walked around the central hub until she came across the partly purple one. "When Sora was still small I used to think that I had to do everything I possibly could to make sure Sora's core memories were happy. That even if there was a little bit of something else it would change for the worst but… it's important that Sora gets to have his memories defined by all of us working together. We're all here for a reason. If Sora was meant to be happy all the time the others would have never arrived. And when we combine our feelings sometimes we make things that are more beautiful than their individual parts."

"It doesn't sound like you really understand this. You guys are supposed to be the emotions."

"We are!" Joy said indignantly.

"We don't know why some emotions stick to memories and not others," Sadness explained. "Sometimes, an emotion will touch a memory and it will change colour. And we have no control over which memories are core memories. Memories are made in the heart and even though we help make them by guiding Sora through his life we just have to deal with them as they come. As the number of memories grows and become more complicated the emotions in those memories become more complicated too. It's a sign that Sora's growing up."

"Like this one," Joy said in a voice that wasn't as peppy as it had been so far. She touched the multi-coloured memory. "That was a really hard day for Sora and it ended up creating Hero Island out of this memory. Sora learned that day that being the hero for everyone is difficult. Not everyone can feel love and not everyone understands what goodness is and they hurt everyone else."

"But even as you're saving people and doing good you have to make choices that you think are bad," Sadness continued. "And sometimes you even hate yourself for doing it, even though it was the right thing. Sometimes Sora's thoughts would come back to him about this day and he asks himself over and over why he did it. How could he help his best friend lock himself behind a door that they may never be able to open? While he's glad that he saved all the worlds it eats him up inside that he had to lose Riku. That's why he went down the path that led to this mess." Sadness looked around the ruined Imagination Land. "He was looking for an alternative way to enter the darkness and find Riku."

"It's related to this," Joy interrupted, touching the memory in Xion's hands with both of hers. "We were pretty surprised when that day created two core memories in a row. We were unsure what to call the second personality island at first but in end Promise Island seemed to be the best name for it. Sora is the kind of kid who will keep any promise no matter how impossible it might be to fulfil."

Xion looked up and her eyes met Joy's, so hopeful and earnest. "I'll find a way to let Sora know about you and when he does he'll want to help. But in order for that to happen he needs Promise Island."

The weight of the memory orb was gradually lifting out of Xion's hands. She gripped it tighter and glared at Joy with a curled lip. "Did you just try to trick me?"

"What? _No_ ," Joy said. Her eyes darted to the left. "I really meant that."

Xion looked over her shoulder.

"Good job, Joy," Anger smirked, sauntering over to them down one of the branching paths. Fear was right behind him and Disgust joined them from an adjoining path. "You brought her right back here."

"Drop the memory!" Fear demanded but his shaky voice wasn't intimidating in the least.

Xion snarled at Joy. "You did trick me!"

"No I didn't! They surprised me too but that doesn't change the fact that Sora needs his core memories." Her voice became strained with her effort to wrench the memory orb out of Xion's grasp but Xion yanked back.

"Give up the orb, girl," Anger threatened, grabbing it with his meaty hands. Even with the two of them Xion was too strong to overcome.

"Don't take what isn't yours," Disgust snapped, lending her strength to the tug-of-war. Fear put his hands around the orb wherever he could fit them and pulled with all of his might. There wasn't any more space to squeeze in so Sadness grabbed Joy around the waist and pulled her instead.

Xion dug her heels in and leaned her weight against them. She was getting that feeling again—that she had been stuffed full and was ready to burst. "I won't… give it up… just… LET ME EXIST!"

The dam burst. Something inside her split open and its contents tumbled out, crashing over Sora's emotions like a wave and knocking them back. The memory orb slipped from their grasp. Xion fell onto her backside with the force of having it suddenly relinquished to her. In front of her, the sound of glass orbs bouncing on the floor tinkled sweetly. One of them rolled further than the others and came to rest at the blue-sandalled feet of a pale girl in a white dress. She crouched down to pick it up.

"Wh-wha…?" Fear stammered, looking at the purple orb that had smacked him in the face. "What's this? Another core memory?"

"But there should be only one left," Disgust said, walking on her knees to the green one that had landed closest to her. Anger stared at the red one confusedly.

"I don't think these are Sora's," Sadness guessed, picking up the blue one.

"Then who…?" Disgust began.

Footsteps deliberately made loud enough to be heard interrupted them and they all turned to the sound. The emotions all gasped at once: "Naminé!"

Naminé cocked her head to the side with a nonplussed expression. "What happened here?"

"She…" Anger spluttered, getting to his feet. He pointed at Xion. "It was her! She made this mess!"

"Don't be so hard on her," Joy admonished, helping herself up. "Xion showed up and she had all of Sora's missing core memories with her but it turned out that in order to get them we had to destroy her."

"I know," said Naminé bluntly. "I told her that myself. You should have known." Xion bowed her head, knowing that had been addressed to her. "What I don't understand is: how did you end up in here like this?"

She looked down at the yellow orb she held. Xion's jaw clenched reflexively. She stood up, glaring at Naminé until she could work her jaw again. "I don't know any more than you do. I'm sick of people treating me like I'm less than nothing!"

"You gave up your body to save Roxas."

"And he's not here! He's not here and I still am. How is that possible?"

"I don't know. He's still alive. He doesn't remember you."

"I changed my mind," Xion wept. "I don't want to stop existing. If I can still be here while Roxas lives, then I want to go and see him and have ice cream. With Axel there too… the three of us together again."

"But can you really keep going, knowing that it's at Sora's expense?" Joy asked, taking tentative steps towards Xion.

"I don't care about Sora."

Joy lashed out and grabbed the memory orb but Xion's grip on it was still tight. She pulled as hard as she can but even with all her might it was all she could do to just hold on as Xion dragged her along.

"Let go! Sora can break his promises. Just let me have this one!"

"It's Sora's! He needs it to find Riku and go home."

"I need it to exist!"

Naminé smiled. "No. You don't."

Xion and Joy both stopped and turned to her. Naminé walked up to her slowly and calmly. She held the memory orb out, close enough that Xion could watch it.

"You have your own core memories. It's just the beginning, but if you look after them you might be able to make something more out of them."

Xion stared at her disbelievingly for a few seconds, and then dared to look down at the orb. It played back to her something so familiar—she'd never ever forgotten it. It was the first time Axel and Roxas had eaten ice cream with her, all three of them together on that clock tower.

"That's…" she whispered. "I remember that."

She let go of Sora's core memory. Her image got so thin that she was barely able to see herself but she didn't disappear completely. Naminé passed the memory orb into her hands. Fresh tears welled up and started to flow down her already tear-streaked face. A tap on her thigh made her look down. Sadness offered up to her a blue core memory.

_"_ _Please don't hold back, Axel. Promise."_

Xion kneeled down to her level and took it as well, watching one of her saddest moments continue and repeat; when she was so hopeless she'd felt the need to abandon him and Roxas. One by one, Disgust, Anger and Fear approached, placing her core memories in her arms.

 _"_ _Why not? Come on…"_ Roxas said, reaching out for her and she had flinched. That uncomprehending look on his face and the sight of herself drawing her own Keyblade against her friend made her sick to her stomach with self-disgust.

 _"_ _I don't know who you're supposed to be. But… you can't fight fire with sparks. This Keyblade, it's a sham—worthless."_ Just the memory of those words made her huff in indignant rage.

 _"_ _I can't save you, Xion. Not even a memory of you."_ Naminé's words reminded her that she was nothing, not even memorable. The thought of being so utterly forgotten like that, even by the people she cared about and who cared about her, had shaken her at her core.

With all of them cradled in her arms they were all close enough to watch. Her memories, taken from her perspective. Nobody else could have seen these and not the way she had. Her tears dripped off her chin and splashed onto their smooth surfaces.

"I don't know how yet but you created these," Naminé said. "And as long as they remain, you'll remain with them."

"So what now?" Xion sobbed, truly lost as to what this meant.

"Whatever you want. Those are yours, not Sora's. Keep them, nurture them and one day, through Roxas, Sora might remember you."

"And when he does he'll come and find you," Joy added, holding the core memory of Promise Island close to her chest. "I promise."

Xion let the promise hang, ringing sweetly in the air. It warmed her inside. She hugged her core memories closer and they started to shine brighter, almost blindingly so. They sunk back into her and the ripped hole in her soul melded back together seamlessly. When she could open her eyes again, the first thing she did was look at her hands. The sight of them made her cry. They were no longer see-through.

The emotions stood back while she revelled in this moment, finally free from a tragic destiny. Until Anger coughed uncomfortably. "Alright, alright! Good for her but in case you haven't noticed there's still a lot of work to do around here. Naminé, there are still a lot of memories lost in the Memory Dump."

"I know," she replied. "Don't worry, I'm working on them. But I saw Xion and I wanted see her."

"You saw me?" Xion asked, wiping the tears off her face. "Were… were you the one looking from those big white eyes? Are those Nobodies yours?"

Naminé smiled secretively but that might as well have been a yes.

"Oh! And we have all of the core memories back!" Joy exclaimed, excitedly shoving the latest one into the final slot. "Things are looking better than ever. What could happen?"

"I hope that's a rhetorical question," Fear said, "because I could make a list."

"I could probably add to it," said Sadness.

"Oh, you two," Joy grinned, wrapping one arm around each of them and squeezing them to her sides. "Don't be such wet blankies. We've got Sora's whole life ahead of us now."

"But only if we clean up around here," Disgust reminded them.

"That's true," Joy gasped, tearing herself away from Fear and Sadness to run after Naminé, who was already making her way back to the Memory Dump. "Give us the scoop, Naminé. What's left to do around here?"

"Not much in terms of tasks," she answered, "but the ones that are left are really big."

"Okay! Then let's get organised!"

Xion stood up, smiling at all of them. "I'll help too."

"Really?"

"I don't know," Fear muttered. "I still don't know how comfortable I am with _outside_ things messing with Sora's mind."

"I'm not going to mess with Sora's mind. I just… want him to keep a promise."

She and Joy locked gazes. Joy's eyes shone and she smiled broadly as she nodded. She rushed back to Xion to take her by the hand and chattered about what needed to be done to get Sora's mind back up and running again. Naminé and the emotions all split up to start working. Xion went with Joy back into Long-term Memory, now with hope. Sora would remember her and come when the time was right. Then she would be able to make more memories like one on the clock tower.

Deep inside of her, another core memory spun itself into existence.

**.**

**.**

**.**

**THE END**


End file.
